Page 373 - A TALE OF TWO CITIES
P. 373
A Tale of Two Cities
both, and to leave my pretty sister; but I am called, and I
must go!’ those were not tears all of agony that wetted his
young mother’s cheek, as the spirit departed from her
embrace that had been entrusted to it. Suffer them and
forbid them not. They see my Father’s face. O Father,
blessed words!
Thus, the rustling of an Angel’s wings got blended with
the other echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but
had in them that breath of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that
blew over a little garden-tomb were mingled with them
also, and both were audible to Lucie, in a hushed
murmur—like the breathing of a summer sea asleep upon
a sandy shore —as the little Lucie, comically studious at
the task of the morning, or dressing a doll at her mother’s
footstool, chattered in the tongues of the Two Cities that
were blended in her life.
The Echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of
Sydney Carton. Some half-dozen times a year, at most, he
claimed his privilege of coming in uninvited, and would
sit among them through the evening, as he had once done
often. He never came there heated with wine. And one
other thing regarding him was whispered in the echoes,
which has been whispered by all true echoes for ages and
ages.
372 of 670